We love guests, having people over and sharing a meal is one of our families favorite things. But, some guest we would rather not share our food with, like the ants that daily file into our house by the hundreds using any and every little crack in the wall to make their way in and out. we have tried a few things to stop them but its just exhausting and they always find a new way in, and I would rather not use poison when I have small children in my home so we just live with the ants.
But at least they don’t bit us like the mosquitos who always find their way in through the door that got left open or the gap around the edge of the screens because they don’t fit the windows perfectly and then the louver windows leave enough of a gap between panes for them to squeeze through. So we put nets over all our beds, but then a child will move in their sleep and put an arm or a face up against the net and the mosquitoes feast. And if you manage to keep from touching the net in your sleep you probably have to get out of bed during the night to calm a child or use the bathroom and while half asleep you climb into bed and forget to check that you adjusted your net properly so it touches the ground so the mosquitos seize the opportunity to come inside your net and gorge themselves.
We also have some uninvited guests that don’t bother us much they stay out of our way and don’t eat our food like a skink and some geckos, the fruit flies are a bit annoying but they clear out if we take care of our overripe fruit.
The there was a mouse who stole a little food out of the pantry but we found his entry point covered it up and got a cat so hopefully won’t be seeing him any more. And speaking of cats we had a big mean cat In the neighborhood who let himself into our porch by tearing the screen on our porch, then he terrorized our cat helped himself to our cats food and water and left. So then we got a dog and haven’t seen the big mean cat again. Our most recent and unexpected intruder was a slug. He startled me one night on my kitchen floor. I didn’t think much of it just threw him outside and thought “I wonder when he snuck in”. But then when he appeared again on the kitchen floor a few night later I thought there must be a way in through or kitchen wall. So I looked in the cupboard closest to him and was surprised to find the snail had definitely taken up residence, lots of snail droppings and a small maybe one inch hole low on the exterior wall. So I cleaned out the cupboard and plugged up the hole and hope not to be visited by this squatter again.
As we prepare to move to Uganda we wonder what challenges and annoyances we will have in our new home. I am hoping there wont be any ants living in our walls because that has been by far my biggest annoyance.
